Emerging fungal pathogens pose a greater threat to biodiversity than any other parasitic
group, causing declines of many taxa, including bats, corals, bees, snakes and …

Genes of the Hox cluster are restricted to the animal kingdom and play a central role in axial
patterning in divergent animal phyla. Despite its evolutionary and developmental …

Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight 1 and comprised one of the
main evolutionary radiations in terrestrial ecosystems of the Mesozoic era (approximately …

The vertebrate immune system is distinguished by an unusual propensity for genetic
invention. For example, three forms of programmed somatic DNA recombination (VDJ …

Antigens present during neonatal life are recognized as self and individuals are tolerant to
these antigens1. In normal individuals T cells are tolerant to most self proteins but we still …

It has become increasingly clear over the course of the past decade that the immune system
genes of teleosts and tetrapods are plainly derived from common ancestral genes. The last 5 …

In seeking evidence of the existence of adaptive immune system (AIS) in ancient chordate,
cDNA clones of six libraries from a protochordate, the Chinese amphioxus, were sequenced …

Individual mammals have the capacity to express at least one million distinct antigen binding
specificities, implying a high degree of structural heterogeneity in the variable heavy and …

The conventional view of evolutionary relationships within the living reptiles is that turtles are
basal to the other groups. Their placement is based largely on the absence in turtles of …

Acquired immunity in vertebrates is characterized by immunological memory and specificity,
whereas the innate defence systems of invertebrates are assumed to have no specific …